When will students return to campus? The COVID-19 pandemic has not only shuttered architecture schools around the country; it will also likely exacerbate a long-standing crisis in the profession. Architecture, much like higher education, is facing a slow-moving demographic disaster. The number of international students, who have buoyed university enrollments since the Great Recession, has started to slide. And enrollments of women and students of color may be on the rise, with women outnumbering men on many campuses, but the number of women and people of color who become licensed architects has not increased at anywhere near the same pace. If we want to increase the number of practicing architects and further diversify the profession, we need to respond to these demographic challenges.
First, let’s review the good news: Data collected by the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) in 2016 reveals that the gap in the number of male and female architecture students continues to close. There were nearly twice as many male students as female students enrolled in architecture schools in the early 1990s, but women are now within 3 percentage points of pulling even with men. While the gap remains larger within B.Arch. programs, the number of women receiving M.Arch. degrees is now very close to that of men.
A similarly optimistic view of gender equality in the profession comes from the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB). “In 2016, women accounted for 36% of newly licensed architects … compared to 34% in 2015,” a rate that, if it continues, would see the number of new female architects equaling that of their male counterparts by the mid-2020s. Women also outperform men in the time it takes from the start of school to the earning of a license—11.8 years versus 12.6 years.
But the pessimists can make a case here as well. ACSA data from 2013 shows that the number of women working as architects has not nearly kept up with the number graduating from schools, suggesting that the profession needs to do a better job of keeping women in the pipeline. That includes improving pay equity and work-life balance at firms. ACSA data from 2015 shows that men’s and women’s salaries track very closely for the first couple of decades in the field, but that the salaries of women start to drop off after about 23 years of experience, with the median salary for women after 28 years almost $20,000 lower than that of men.
Diversifying the Profession
We can make another glass-half-full or -half-empty assessment of the diversity data. The profession has historically had a horrible track record when it comes to racial diversity: among NCARB certificate holders in 2018, only 2% were Black and less than 1% Latinx, despite those groups accounting for more than 12% and 16%, respectively, of the U.S. population. In that context, the growing diversity among students enrolled in architecture programs seems particularly impressive. According to 2015 ACSA data, well over 25% of M.Arch. and pre-architecture enrollees are students of color, representing a more than 10-percentage-point increase since 2009.
As the percentage of students of color has increased, that of white students has been on a steady, downward trajectory. White students constituted more than 55% of all architecture students in 2009 and accounted for 45% of the total by 2015. What is interesting about that figure is how it follows future projections of the U.S. population: demographers predict a more than 16% decline of white people as a percentage of the population between 2015 and 2055, when white people will be at, yes, about 45% of the total. In that sense, American architecture schools may be at the leading edge of a demographic trend already transforming this country.
Whether the growing number of students of color will become architects, though, remains an open question. NCARB data shows that fewer than 20% of new architects identify as racial or ethnic minorities, even though they represent 30% of new ARE candidates and 42% of new AXP participants. This suggests that the profession needs to do all it can to help and support the growing number of architecture graduates of color as they move through the AXP and ARE process. The data on that front isn’t encouraging. NCARB data from 2017 shows that while roughly 45% of new record holders identify as a racial minority, that drops to around 15% of those who are licensed, with the biggest gap occurring between the start of AXP and the start of the ARE.
The Decline of Foreign Students
Another diversity data point should also cause us concern. ACSA has tracked the steady increase of international students in North American architecture schools, from 5% in 2009 to roughly 15% in 2015. That is a higher percentage than in universities as a whole, where foreign students in 2015 accounted for about 5% of the total student body at U.S. universities, about a third of them from China. By 2017, however, the number of foreign students in American universities had dropped almost 7% from that total and some analysts see an even more precipitous decline ahead, given the federal government’s stance toward immigration and its trade war with China. (In the short term, the COVID-19 pandemic will likely depress those numbers ever further, as international students face visa restrictions newly imposed by the Trump administration.) Such a decline would not only negatively affect architecture-school enrollments and their budgets, but also impede diversity efforts in the profession.
The overall architectural workforce could also take a hit if foreign students stop coming. While ACSA has tracked a rise in the number of architecture degree programs of all types, which have increased from about 600 in 1992 to 1,100 by 2016, the overall number of students in accredited programs has declined by roughly 6% between 2009 and 2017. That data may seem contradictory, but it reveals something important about the future of our field. Universities have responded to the growing interest in design and have created more diverse offerings—certificates, minors, and nonprofessional degrees—for those who may or may not have any intention of becoming architects. Optimists might see this as a good thing—more people want to learn how to think and work like designers—but pessimists might point to the softening demand for accredited degrees as a real concern.
How to Grow the Profession
In the January 2018 of ARCHITECT, Kermit Baker, Hon. AIA, posed the question: “How Many Architects Does Our Economy Need?” He concluded that “we’ll need about 25,000 additional architectural staff over the coming decade to handle growth in the construction industry and replace those who will leave the workforce. This need accounts for about half of all future graduates of accredited architectural programs nationally who are eligible to work in the United States.” Nobody knows yet to what extent the current economic downturn will change these long-term projections, but needing only half of all future graduates to become licensed sounds like an achievable goal. If the enrollment decline continues, however, the profession must find ways to spur a higher percentage of graduates to achieve licensure to keep up with the projected demand.
To attract both the number and diversity of architects we will need in the future, we must pay attention to how the profession gets portrayed in places where prospective students and their families look for advice. This year, U.S. News & World Report ranked “architect” sixth among the eight “best engineering jobs,” claiming that our field has “average” opportunities for upward mobility and workplace flexibility, but an “above average” stress level, which lowered our ranking. And WalletHub ranks architecture ninth out of 109 entry-level jobs, behind eight engineering careers, but well above other professions like law and accounting. Again, architecture does well in terms of job opportunities and growth potential, but poorly—59th place—in terms of long working hours.
In 2008, AIA held a “Diversity Plenary” in which it committed “to develop a profession that reflects the diversity of the communities, users, and the clients we serve.” That goal remains achievable if schools and the profession see themselves as part of a singular, coordinated effort to reach out to underrepresented students in primary and secondary school and to create a path for them into architecture school, through AXP and the ARE, and into practice. The COVID-19 pandemic and the current economic downtown only makes the challenge all the more difficult. How many aspiring women and minority architects may be laid off or find themselves locked out of the profession? Will remote learning expose further inequity by limiting students who may not have access to the necessary technology? We need to remain committed to the goal of diversifying the profession because it’s the right thing to do. But it’s also a question of professional survival: Without such an effort, schools face a shrinking pool of students, and the profession a shrinking workforce. Demography may be destiny, but we cannot let it defeat us.
